Going with the Gospel

Thirty-eight years ago, when I came to Las Vegas, my desire was to give the Gospel to every single home in the city of Las Vegas. I really did not like the idea of living in Las Vegas. I wanted to give the Gospel to everyone as soon as possible so that it could be rejected and I could move to a place that was not in the middle of the desert. Since then God has changed my heart quite a bit. I love living here and I love the people of Las Vegas. We also have had the privilege of giving the Gospel to every single home in Las Vegas at least twice. On an annual basis, we give the Gospel to approximately 200,000 homes in the city.

Ten methods we use to get the Gospel to our city.

1 – Going door to door

In Acts 20:20 Paul tells the Ephesian elders he went from house to house preaching. Some would argue that that is actually talking about discipling people in different house churches. I believe that he was actually going from home to home to home to give people the gospel message. Either way, going door to door does work. I believe because we are faithful to reach out in this way, God has given us opportunities to reach people in other venues as well.

2 – Lifestyle evangelism

I have listened to people debate about the effectiveness of lifestyle evangelism as compared to confrontational evangelism. Some will criticize one or the other. I believe in both. I believe that people watch how we walk more than they listen to how we talk. However, if we do not talk, they will never hear the true Gospel. It is important that we live the Christian lifestyle in our neighborhood. It is also important that we tell our neighbors why we live the way we live. Your neighbors watching you pull out of your driveway every Sunday morning and go to church will not bring them to the God of the Bible. You see the Mormons are pulling out of their driveway at the same time. The Catholics are pulling out of their driveway. There are other people that drive out of their driveway just to go to work every Sunday morning. You need to live the life in front of your neighbors. You need to live the life in your school. You need to live the life where you work. Then you need to give the Gospel either through tracts or a personal invitation to church. You can also have them over to your home where you can then share the Gospel of Jesus Christ. My family and I have gone to every door in our neighborhood inviting our neighbors to church, because we love our neighbors. We want them to know the truth of the Gospel.

3 – Give gospel tracts out when you fill up your car at the gas station

This is not as easy as it used to be because now we have self-service pumps. However, if you have to go in and pay for your gas, before you leave, ask the person behind the counter, “Can I give you something very good to read?” or ask the question, “Have you gotten one of these yet?” Most often people will respond, “No, what is it?” which will give you an opportunity to give them a gospel tract.

4 – Give a gospel tract when you go to the grocery store

When you are checking out at the grocery store, before you leave say, “Hey, may I give you something really good to read?” Or, “Can I give you an invitation to our church?” and hand them a Gospel tract with your church address on it. You never know how effective a kind greeting to someone who is serving you will be.

5 – Give gospel tracts to waiters at the restaurant you frequently visit

I was sitting at an Olive Garden restaurant with my wife one afternoon, and a young man named Will came up to me and took our order. After he took our order, I ask, “Hey can I give something really good?” He asked, “What is that?” I said, “This will tell you how you can know for sure you are going to Heaven.” He looked at me with a shocked face and said, “You’re kidding!?! That is what I need.” He said he went to church yesterday, and I asked how I can know I’m going to Heaven but nobody told me.” I had the opportunity that day to share with him in the restaurant how he could know for sure he was going to Heaven. He knelt down at the table beside me, prayed, and received Christ as his Saviour. By the way, give the tract at the beginning of the meal so they have an opportunity to read it and ask questions before you go. I did not always do it that way but I find that it is very effective.

6 – Send tracts as you are paying bills

When you receive a bill from the electric company, often times you will receive advertisements from different people. Years ago I decided, if they can send me an advertisement I can send them the Gospel. So when I send out a envelope to pay a bill, I always include a gospel tract and I encourage our people to send out gospel tracts when they are paying bills.

7 – Leave tracts in public places

Several years ago, I was at a restaurant in town called The Black Bear Restaurant. We had a wonderful meal and then I excused myself and went into the men’s restroom. When I was getting ready to leave the restroom, I felt led to leave a gospel tract in the stall. So I did and went back to the table and finished our meal. The next day in church a women and a man walked into our Visitor’s Center. The lady said, “You will never guess how we found this place.” I asked her to tell me the story. She began to tell me that the night before they were at The Black Bear Restaurant. “My husband said to me, ‘We ought to start going to church.’ I told him he was right, but we didn’t know where to start looking for a church. He got up and went to the restroom; while he was there he found this!” She pulled out the gospel tract that I had left in the restroom. He came back to the table. She told me, “We knew we were supposed to be in this church today.” You never know what an impact you will have by just leaving gospel tracts in public places for people to pick up.

8 – The internet

With the internet comes all sorts of opportunities to witness. It is certainly true that the internet has been used to promote all sorts of wickedness. However, we can use the same tool to bring glory and honor to God. Liberty now live streams all of its services. We have the Gospel very clearly given on the internet. I believe that Christians should use tools like Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest to give the Gospel they have influence over. We live in a media society. Let us use what God has made available for us. The Devil is certainly going to use it. We ought to try to beat him to the punch.

9 – Radio

Liberty Baptist Church is entering into a new phase of ministry. For the last couple months we have been airing conservative Christian programming and music on our local low powered FM station on that God gave us, 101.1. So far the response in the community has been very good as people are tuning in to hear Bible truth over the airwaves. Since many of our ministry friends are not in Las Vegas, we have setup a website (KVXL101.com) there you can stream our station live, 24/7 all around the world! If Satan is the prince of the power of the air, let us do all we can to broadcast quality gospel-centered programming in his territory, and impact lives both in our city and around the world.

10 – Television

As I mentioned, our services are live streamed. However, before live streaming came into existence, several times in our history we have used T.V. as an evangelistic tool to reach out into our community.

It is important that we use every weapon we can for getting the Gospel to a lost and dying world.